Payback (27 page)

Tom
decided now he had no alternative but to trust her now. ‘What is it you want me to do?’

With
a look of relief, she smiled weakly. ‘Thank you. It is this. Rybinski has a private lab, which nobody is allowed to enter. Supposedly because it’s dangerous and sterile. It’s the one next to the ground-floor store room with a radiation warning sign on the door. You’ll find it. Even Blacher does not go in. He knows the Russian needs his own space. And besides, they hate each other. I have been in this lab twice. The first time, last week, I got out some samples. But they were nothing we did not expect. This afternoon—when you were at the plant—I was intending checking out his paperwork too. But I dropped a phial and got disturbed by the guards. Rybinski will by now have been told. I can’t go back. I’m blown.

‘
So
you
must try and help. It’s almost too late. I heard him telling Barton that he’s finished his experiments, and succeeded in whatever it is he’s been trying to do. And he and Blacher yesterday had a terrible row. Never has Blacher seemed so angry. I think he now also suspects that Rybinski has been doctoring his work somehow. So you see, there is very little time left.

‘
This is a key to the lab and one to a filing cabinet in there. Take them.
Don’t
try and take out any phials. You won’t know what you’re doing, and it could be very dangerous. And not just to you. But his research notes should be in the cabinet. They might give our people all they need.’

Tom
shook his head. ‘I’ll only be there half a day tomorrow. During regular working hours. How can I possibly get in there?’

The
woman got up and went to the door. Opening it and looking cautiously up and down the corridor, she shot a parting glance back at him. ‘Figure something out, Mr Bates. Many lives depend on it.’

*

There has been a close, if at first informal link since the War between MI6 and DI6—historically Military Intelligence, Defence Intelligence—cemented later in clandestine campaigns such as Borneo, the Yemen and the Gulf. In Northern Ireland, the exchange of senior officers continued, alternating between SIS, military intelligence and the SAS headquarters in Hereford. Despite all this, Mitchell still did not like the special forces. Never had. And was not comfortable at having been appointed commander of the assault operation.

The
Regiment’s technical skills, their training and commitment were as impeccable as they were legendary. But in the final analysis MI6 and the SAS generally moved in very different worlds, with different priorities, as MI5 had also found with Operation Flavius, ten years earlier in Gibraltar. The officers and men, to whom the ‘troop’ is everything, were of necessity utterly tunnel-visioned on a mission. Their priorities were
their
priorities, their part of the operation, and Mitchell had always felt uncomfortable working with them on potentially messy jobs like this. Jobs where goal posts might have to change mid-game.

The
group’s first meeting was in a windowless Ministry of Defence secure briefing room, off Whitehall. Sitting around the table were Neil Gaylord, representing both his own Service and the Cabinet Office Proliferation CIG; the Service’s Director of Counter Intelligence and Security; the head of its Global Tasks Department; a lieutenant colonel and a major from ‘G’ Squadron SAS, the Special Projects Team on stand-by as a counter-terrorist force; a commander of the Special Boat Squadron; an officer from the Special Forces HQ; a professor from the Defence Intelligence Staff’s Scientific and Technical Directorate; and a lone senior Foreign Office man carrying the brief for both the Portuguese and Central America Desks.

Having
let the nine of them—all men—study their numbered files, Mitchell summed up before opening the meeting up for questions. ‘So. All in all, it doesn’t make very pretty reading for HMG, does it? Sir James Barton, Bt., a former British Treasury and Foreign Office Minister, about to host the next Aruba Mutual Alliance meeting in Belize. Our Station Officer in Belmopan tells us the additional security work at the ranch is almost complete—he’s sending full details of what’s been installed for you, Colonel, along with maps, building blueprints, and aerial photography.’ The SAS man nodded, but knew they would not use it. Having got wind of what today was about, he already had his own reconnaissance underway, using a team coincidentally down there on routine jungle training. ‘At the meeting Barton will present his normal management report on last quarter’s performance by his treasury management team. Plus a “bank statement” for each Alliance member, detailing their inter-group trading and capital balances. Neil, we’ve got them pretty well monitored, haven’t we?’

Gaylord
was not expecting this and looked a little flustered in front of the powerful group. ‘We’ve had access for some months now to his dealers’ computers. A copy of all the financial information is also in your packs.’

Mitchell
nodded, looking around. ‘On the back of this, at the same meeting he’ll go on to sell them another of his ideas. One designed to make him one of the richest men in the world. They’ll pay him anything he asks when he explains what he’s done. It’s his answer for the Alliance to the American drugs taskforce. An initiative driven personally by the US President, remember. It’s the thing for which he wants his second and final term of office in the White House to be remembered. The man who cleaned up America.

‘
To stymie all this Barton, at huge personal cost—funded by a recent £15 million share placement—seems to have perfected for the Alliance a formidable deterrent. Biological weapons. Certainly botulinum toxin. But possibly—
probably
we think—something even worse. We were hoping our agent in the lab would have got out some hard intelligence on exactly what we may be facing. But we’ve had to pull her. Cover blown. I’m hoping one of my civilian recruits will be able to do something today.
Hoping
. Because with Rybinski involved, I can promise you whatever’s out there will be something very tricky, and very nasty. This, gentlemen, is what we have to stop. And with only a week to the Aruba summit, not much time to play with. It will have to be a co-ordinated simultaneous attack—on Oeiras, led by SBS, and Belize, led by SAS. For the former, current thinking is to brief Lisbon late, hit hard and have the boffins make it safe. And the latter, to arrest the drugs barons for extradition to the States. We think we’ll be able to request the Belize PM to have his Chief of Police formally sign over control to us.

‘
So. Before we task ourselves, any questions on this whole bloody mess?’

There
was the usual early silence as members of the inter-departmental group sniffed out their own territorial boundaries, making their assessments, and figuring out positions in the pecking order.

It
was the SAS leader who spoke first. ‘Who’s IC overall?’

Mitchell
smiled inwardly. ‘I’ve been asked to head up the operations centre here in London. But responsibility for the two missions—planning and on the ground—rests of course with yourself, and the SBS.’

The
dour man looked less than impressed at this. ‘And what are our...terms of engagement?’

‘
Hard arrest,’ Mitchell replied sharply. ‘And I want that clear from the outset. Both these missions are taking place on friendly soil, and I don’t want “undue force” used. There will be no such thing as clean kills out there. We’ll have surprise on our side. I won’t accept any post-rationalised wets. Not on my watch. Is that understood?’

The
two commanders nodded back. Each knew of Mitchell’s formidable reputation in the field over his long career, but by now they had him firmly pigeon-holed as an old war-horse, out to grass.

‘
With your Lisbon agent out of it, how good’s this DP4 of yours?’ It was the old Foreign Office hand.

Mitchell
looked amused. DP4 had been one of his earliest postings in the Service, and was what had got him into the fast track Sovbloc stream. Based in a red-brick mansion block, opposite New Scotland Yard on Victoria Street, his job had been to identify suitable businessmen travelling to the USSR, and then recruit them to work for him. More than thirty years later and
rien
ne
change
. ‘He’s a management consultant. American. Bright but cautious. OKish, but don’t expect too much from him. Who knows, though, he just might surprise me. I’ll be making him available to you tomorrow for briefing when he flies in. He’s unique in being familiar with the layout of both Oeiras and the ranch in Belize. And of course he knows Barton.’

‘
Can’t wait to get our hands on him,’ the SBS Commander said, catching his SAS counterpart’s eye and then looking despairingly to the heavens.

*

The plan had been for Tom and Barton to meet for lunch the next day with Rybinski before going on again to the lab. Barton wanted a full update without Ladislas Blacher there.

Rybinski
was already in the Saisa restaurant, just off the coast road and overlooking the bay. There was nobody else in the place yet, and they ordered their meal, grazing the bread, nuts and olives and sipping white port. ‘So. How’s it
really
going?’ Barton demanded.

The
Russian shot a look at Tom. ‘How much can I say?’ He had the same irritating American accent as many international streetwise Muscovites.

Barton
nodded his acknowledgement and turned to Tom. ‘Give us a few minutes alone. I need to explain to Andrei why I’ve now involved you—as a partner. OK?’

Tom
nodded and reluctantly left them, heading for a breath of sea air outside.

‘
How much does he know?’ Rybinski was not happy.

‘
He knows
almost
everything. Tom’s now family.’ Barton had briefed him over dinner the night before on the Aruba Mutual Alliance, the US-sponsored threat to the drugs money and the work here in Oeiras on the biological weapons. ‘I’ve told him everything—except the real nature of what you’ve been doing.’

‘
But he knows about Blacher’s work?’

‘
He now knows we’re offering the Alliance a credible biological warhead. But believes it’s purely botulinum toxin. He also knows we plan to launch a small warhead, demonstrating the power of the deterrent, to frighten off the President’s taskforce. And to rake in serious money from the Aruba members.’ Barton knew the naturally suspicious Russian was annoyed at this change, but he was in no mood to be challenged. ‘That’s it. So. Your turn. Shoot. I need to know just one thing. Will it work?’

‘
Yeah, well...the biological agent is ready. My special one. It worked fine on the small test group. The right people died.’ Rybinski picked out another olive, sucked noisily on it and placed the stone neatly on the edge of his side plate alongside the others. ‘Overall, for a small sample, it worked out pretty good. My new weedkiller wiped out the daisies.’

‘
And you’re sure Blacher knows nothing of what you’ve been doing?’ Barton asked, anxiously. ‘The old fool still believes he’s helping Israel!’

‘
He’s suspicious. Gave me a hard time yesterday. But it’s OK. He just thinks I’ve been experimenting with different levels of toxicity. Which in a way I have.’

Tom
had come back deliberately quickly, and was hovering just outside earshot. Barton waved him over.

‘
So no problems, then?’ Tom said as he sat down again. He felt for his own safety that he had better seem to enter into the spirit of things, and be excited by it.

Rybinski
looked at him, still suspicious, and then back to Barton. ‘I wouldn’t say that. We’ve produced the agent and germ cultures for the warheads. It’s a credible enough threat. But the lab here is hardly what I was used to, you know. Our weaponisation—delivery and dispersal—is completely untested. At Leningrad we had an entire complex with big teams working on these things. With our own scatter chamber, and sophisticated
poligon
test-firing facilities. All we have now is a very crude option. Untested delivery on Scud B missiles, from a Maz-543 launcher. Range 350 kilometres.’

Tom
’s eyes widened. ‘So you’ve actually got the missiles?’

Both
Barton and Rybinski laughed. ‘We’ve got dollars—and they buy just about anything we want from our Russian friends. And I mean anything,’ Barton grinned.

Tom
knew this to be no idle boast, recalling press reports of an abortive $6 million deal in Florida. US agents had frustrated an alleged attempt to buy two ex-Soviet nuclear-powered submarines and six military attack helicopters. ‘And where’s our target?’ he pressed, knowing this was the key information Mitchell would want from him.

But
now even Barton seemed suspicious, and as the waiter brought their food he pointedly changed the subject. It was a warning bell not lost on Tom, the nursery-slope spy.

As
they were finishing the meal, Rybinsksi’s pager buzzed, and he read the short message. His face drained of colour and, throwing down his napkin, he stood up. ‘Some big problem at the lab. Come on. We need to get over there!’